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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30078078">Shores of Paradise</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisengrave/pseuds/Eisengrave'>Eisengrave</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/selwyn/pseuds/selwyn'>selwyn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Gifts from the Divine [HashiMada RP Collection] [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:47:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,954</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30078078</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisengrave/pseuds/Eisengrave, https://archiveofourown.org/users/selwyn/pseuds/selwyn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Eternal Tsukoyomi doesn't quite look like Madara envisioned.</p><p>[short drabble]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Senju Hashirama/Uchiha Madara</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Gifts from the Divine [HashiMada RP Collection] [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2211912</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shores of Paradise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The gods did not exist. If they ever had, then mankind had devoured them long ago. Madara was the closest thing to a god that would ever walk this blasted earth, the second Sage of Six Paths. For three hours and four minutes (but what was time anyway?), he held the world in his palm; a blue marble, the beauty of inexplicable life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Madara tipped his hand lovingly and let the world drown.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No more inconsistency. No more betrayal. The kindest souls and the most monstrous hearts could coexist within the impenetrable skins of their dreaming worlds, all the pitfalls of human weakness erased like a blemish. When it was time, Madara turned his own face up and let the bloody moon take him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Madara did not change in life after life. Or, well, he was back to himself, in his armor and mantle, black-haired and fair-skinned, but he did not change. The what-if’s and should-be’s continued to plague his brain like always and Madara, for one ugly moment, wondered if he wasn’t meant to have his perfect dream after all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He blinked and he realized where he was. The bank of the Nakano at midday, all the insects buzzing and the sun an orange jewel behind the green-gilded trees. But why this? Why here?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A rock was in his hand. Madara threw it across the river without thinking, and gaped when it hopped only two measly times before plunking into the green water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” he said to himself. “Even now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, Hashirama hadn’t been sure why he wasn’t afraid. Any stranger could be dangerous, and this one looked particularly wild, but when a grown man skipped stones across a river, he lost that intimidating factor rather quickly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Deciding to show him how it was done, Hashirama stepped to the riverbank, to the strange man’s side, picking up a flat rock and letting it hop across the water, to the other side. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to aim a little higher than where you want it to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turned around and saw the little boy there. Him, in his little scarf and jacket, sweet-faced under a dark cap of hair, grinning cheekily like he was holding in a laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart stuttered for a split-second. Madara looked down at his stone – when had he gotten another? – and spoke. “I know that,” he said. He threw it again and for the second time that day, his rock hopped two times before sinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But… that was okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was never really good at these things anyway,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “You always did this stuff before me… Hashirama.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So it was him. He looked so different now, tall, wild, pale as death. Hashirama didn’t know what happened to him, but he recognized him in the guise of this man. He didn’t question it either, it felt as it always did, right? Right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess you still have a long way to go until you’re my rival in skipping.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I can teach you, if you want. Madara.” That’s what friends did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was it? Aim a little higher? I did that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was another stone in his hand. Madara threw it up and caught it again. Then he aimed and threw it again. This time the rock hopped three times, nearly three-quarters of the way of the river, before it slipped under the water. Madara watched it go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I tried my best,” he said. No new stone materialized in his hand, even when he waited. Out of chances, then. “You believe me, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama pursed his lips, concentrated on the river where Madara’s stone had sunk to the depths.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your best isn’t really cutting it, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was he supposed to compliment a failed attempt? Madara certainly looked like he could throw Hashirama across the river.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Madara blinked. That was… he looked to the side, where Hashirama gave him an unimpressed little look, like he was asking him really? and suddenly, Madara was embarrassed. Not humiliated, not mortified, just embarrassed, like he’d done something silly and stupid.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s these rocks!” he snapped. He suddenly had a new one in his hand, one that he chucked over the river easily. It clattered onto the opposite shore. “Something’s wrong with them!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grabbed him by the scruff and lifted him off his feet. His little sandals popped off his feet when he did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anyway, you’re pretty mouthy for such a brat!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Being lifted off of his feet was definitely not a fun experience and Hashirama couldn’t recommend it to anyone. But if he had any doubts before about this really being Madara, they were now gone. Only he would get so easily riled up about something as trivial as skipping stones.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heeeh-! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to remind you of your failure. I’m sure you’ve accomplished much with your life!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tch, you – !” Madara shook Hashirama like he was a disobedient puppy. “What’s up with you and this dumb neurosis, don’t you think it’s time to grow up? And you’re still such a little nuisance!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry!” Hashirama was doing a good impression of a kitten, trapped in the jaws of its displeased mother, body limp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you grow out of being unable to piss with someone behind you yet?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why, you little shit – !”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Madara leaned back, one leg lifted. Then, with a great heave and a shout, he hurled Hashirama into the Nakano. “Hah!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Madara crossed his arms. “Outgrow that!“</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Water splashed around Hashirama when he fell into the river. He could probably have landed on his feet on the surface, but it was warm anyway. It was always warm when he came here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He came up to the surface, spewed out some water like a fountain ornament.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess I’m lucky you didn’t piss here.” Hashirama laughed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re still as annoying as when I first met you,” Madara grunted, sitting down. He had to resist his grin, however, and his heart was lighter now than it had been since… ever, really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So… I guess you don’t mind, then?” He looked down at himself, at his armor and mantle. At the body of a war-hardened man. “It’s… I didn’t know what I’d get. I expected you to be bigger.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bigger?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama swam to shore, shaking the water out of his clothes like a wet dog. Not that it dried him off, but it was a worthy attempt. He sat himself down next to Madara and pulled off his soaked scarf and jacket.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I expected you to be smaller. And your voice got weird too. And your hair got long. You kind of look like a porcupine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does it bother you?” he asked him. “I don’t really know how to change back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Could he even do that anymore? His childhood felt impossibly far away from him, like distant land he saw from a boat. Madara remembered something like that from when he was young. A mission he’d been on with his clan that went into the Land of Water. They’d boarded rickety boat that’d smelled like fish guts and Madara had lingered near the stern of the boat, watching as the Land of Fire got further and further away until it was just a shimmering green line on the watery horizon that was soon swallowed up by the mist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He felt the same way now, looking back on these memories.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know if I can. I’ve changed too much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, you really haven’t.” Hashirama was wringing out the hakama he’d wriggled out of a moment ago, glancing at Madara with nothing but a knowing smile. He shook his pants once, twice, then pulled them back on and tied the sash around his waist. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean you got bigger, older…but you’re kind of still the same, inside.” Even under all that hair, the scowl…still Madara. Still his friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t believe anymore,” Madara said. “In what I used to believe. Well. Not in the way I used to believe, I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hands were weary and his soul was worn paper-thin. To endure was great, but even the greatest rocks were eventually sanded down by erosion. His shape was irrevocably changed, he felt. Some parts of him were permanently lost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“…I have no more faith, maybe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He held out his hand for Hashirama. It’d been a long time since Madara touched another person just for the sake of touching them. Even longer since he genuinely cared about the other person.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama didn’t hesitate to take his hand. His own disappeared in Madara’s, but what did it matter?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The longer he sat beside the man, the less of a child he became. The longer he sat and watched the river, the less his life mattered. Madara…Madara, Madara. His head was full of memories that didn’t belong to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not even in yourself?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Especially not myself.” Madara looked at where they held hands. “But I know I am strong. I know what I can do. I… made the right choice, this time. This time, I did what I needed to do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turned over Hashirama’s hand. Even as a child, his hand wasn’t soft. The fingers were a little crooked from breaking, and there were a dozen tiny scars from weapons accidents and burns, and he examined them all with grave sobriety. They hadn’t been children since they left the womb, the two of them. How cruel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And now I can be happy. This is supposed to be my perfect dream, you know. Though you’re not trying very hard.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not the one who’s dreaming,” Hashirama shrugged off the accusation. He knew now what this was, what he was, but it didn’t change anything about him here, about Madara here. If this was how Madara wanted to spend eternity…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe you liked me best like this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked up at Hashirama’s face. Boyish. Prone to smiling. A little silly, but Madara liked him that way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“…some of the best memories I have of you,” he said, “are when you’re like this. We never fought as kids.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sparred, competed, argued, and squabbled… but genuine combat had never been on the table. It’d been an unthinkable line to cross.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I want to be a grown man… but to have the same relationship with you as we had when we were young? How strange. It doesn’t really work.” That kind of innocence was long gone from him. He was too different now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama shrugged. The why’s weren’t important, were they? This was what Madara wanted, and so, that’s how it was. If he controlled the world, he could change it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe that’s exactly why. You wanted to see me, but you don’t feel like you can back. Kind of weird that you think it’s okay for me, though. Didn’t I change?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You did,” Madara agreed, but it wasn’t an agreement of approval. It was neutral, a slightly begrudging admittance of a black-and-white fact. Didn’t I change?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, yes, he did. How Hashirama changed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was it foolish of him to believe that Hashirama alone could be untouched by the flaws he saw in the left-behind reality? Maybe so. But Madara had always been an idealist of sorts (not one like Hashirama, but an idealist nonetheless), and it’d been disappointing – even heart-wrenching – to understand that Hashirama, powerful, unbreakable, indomitable Hashirama, could eventually be worn down into the same narrow-minded animal everyone else was. A part of him had wanted him to be… untouched, perhaps. To be the sun rising over the landscape of their dreams, the warmth to which Madara could turn his face to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that was unfair, he knew that. It was an unrealistic expectation. Madara, of all people, knew the soft, fleshy secrets of Hashirama – all the wrinkled pieces of him that didn’t fit his assumed reputation. He knew the man, had tasted and swallowed him. But knowing didn’t change feeling. Acknowledgement of the rational never stopped irrational emotion, otherwise none of this would have been necessary. But in this world, in this perfect dream, nothing had to be rational or sensible or reasonable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We both changed,” he said, looking over to his companion. There was an additional gleam to Hashirama’s eyes. It was hard to catch, only seen from certain angles, like the sun catching on a hidden fish’s scales, but Madara’s eyes were good at noticing these things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not necessarily for the better. I know you didn’t like how I changed. Is it bad to want us when it was easy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Easy? Was it easy when they were young? Was it easy to defy everything they’d been taught for the sake of company? Did Madara find it easy to lie to his family about his thoughts, intentions, hopes and fears?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, Hashirama wouldn’t consider it any easier than the lives they’d lived after. The lives they’d lived apart, and yet, always terribly entwined. This now, it had nothing to do with either of them. This was just an escape, the final solution that solved nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama’s bitterness tasted odd. As if he’d never felt it before, and yet, he knew it was his own emotion. It was disturbing, actually. Was he a man or a boy? Did he come here to skip stones, or console a friend? Was Madara a friend, or a madman? Somehow, always both.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s your dream Madara, not mine. If this is easy for you, that must mean something.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Maybe,” he said, but he didn’t feel any urge to dig into it. He would have in his other life, he knew, but not here. In this world, his brain didn’t run away from him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He held his hand out for Hashirama. “Have you considered that this is a dream we share? I wouldn’t be happy with an imperfect replica of you. Only the real you will ever do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The real me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama knew, in some distant fashion, that this wasn’t as real as it felt. He was a child and yet he was not. His emotions didn’t match the memories spilling through his mind. His hands were too small to cup the depth of feeling seeping out of him. Like trying to hold a river in his palms. Whatever he was, he only knew Madara was in control. Of him, of this world. The impulse to fight was there, the strength to do so was not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He took Madara’s hand instead, watched it engulf his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this it then? The only me you would want to share eternity with?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The image of Hashirama flickered, his adult face spliced through his boyishness, and Madara frowned. The image settled down again. He didn’t know if that was something in his own head or something that actually happened (or if there was any difference between the two).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I just missed you,” he said. “Missed this. I remember thinking that. Wishing I could… go back, I suppose. Fix what went wrong so we never had to suffer.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But you made it so we suffered for longer.” There was no disguising the childish frankness of his words and Hashirama didn’t try. The flicker of something other - an awareness inside of him that this wasn’t quite right, this wasn’t quite him - disappeared, he felt whole once more in his current shape and form.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You made us both suffer for so long. Why did you do that if you missed me? Why did you not let me fix what was broken? Why just play pretend like this, Madara?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked away from him. There was a power Hashirama had like this; with just his words, he could cut Madara deeper than any sword. He looked down at the rocky shore, then at the sluggish water, and found no reprieve in either of them. The air felt heavier somehow, as if Hashirama had released something into it by saying that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“…it wasn’t that simple,” he said. It was a limp explanation. Toothless. It slithered out of his mouth and died upon emergence like a small animal that’d washed ashore. Madara closed his eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could never really trust you,” he muttered. “That was the problem, wasn’t it? We always hid our inner thoughts from each other.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once upon a time, they hadn’t. They’d hidden the obvious while revealing the intimate, and it had been only the two of them in their world. When peace came, Madara had thought they could rebuild the shattered pieces of that world again – but he’d been wrong, hadn’t he? Hashirama would never again exist in that small space with him. He had to be shared with everyone else. Madara had resented that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did we? Did I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not. Hashirama might not be able to recall exactly what Madara meant, considering that life felt distant and dreamlike, but he knew himself; he’d always known one thing, and that was himself. Even if the world crashed down around him, even if he was the one to plummet it into the depth of darkness, Hashirama knew himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That doesn’t sound like me. I always told you how I feel, about everything. You cut me out like something you didn’t want anymore.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You cut me out first!” It came out instantly, a reaction that escaped his restraint. Madara flushed as soon as he said it, hating himself for it. It was a childish thing to say. It was not something a leader of a clan should say. Or even think.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You never listened. And I tried, I did.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been fine when Tobirama hated him, because Madara hated him too. When his clan turned their backs to him, Madara had consoled himself with the knowledge that they were wrong. But when Hashirama’s promises became papery and his word grew unreliable… what else was he supposed to do? What else was there to do?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had no other choice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Didn’t you?” Hashirama tired of sitting quietly beside Madara. It didn’t feel like enough; he needed to watch his expression more closely. Clambering onto him was fairly easy; the man wasn’t tall and ungainly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You really think I stopped listening to you? Is that what’s coming out of your mouth? And you believe it too?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>None of these questions really required an answer, but Hashirama asked them nonetheless. Not because he needed them, but because Madara did. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have changed so much, on the inside. When I knew you, you let me talk. But it seems you really forgot how to listen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did listen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Madara wanted to shout. He wanted to break. He wanted to get up and set the entire forest on fire until the ashes resembled how he felt inside. But he felt paralyzed in this position, sitting with Hashirama on him, staring him down. A world of blame glowed in his brown eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did,” he said again. “I made peace with you. I built Konoha with you. Even though I loved my brother, I chose my love for you. I chose peace.“</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grabbed Hashirama’s shoulder. He could no longer tell if it was the thin bone of a boy or the cold armor on a man. He had never begged Hashirama for anything. But right now… he came the closest to it, to plead for this child-faced judge to believe him. “But I was afraid,” Madara confessed. He said it softly, like a sin. “I was so afraid and you didn’t see that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t choose peace. That’s why you were afraid. You just chose me.” It was agony the like Hashirama didn’t know. Not at this point, maybe later in his life. The dull, aching shadow of disappointment came back to him, an unwanted friend that could not be bidden to leave.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t really believe, even when I showed you. Because you lost your hope. You lost your dream. You held onto love, because it was all you had left. And then, you blamed me when it could not hold you on a peaceful path. You wanted to leave. You wanted to change the future with bloodshed and destruction. What kind of love is that, Madara? Love that turns to hatred? Did you hate me so much in the end?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That not true,” he said, but Hashirama was relentless. “Stop it,” Madara said again, trying to stem his words. Trying to shut them out. He felt pinned, dissected; a butterfly skewered in place. “Stop it!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grabbed him by the neck. Threw him on the rocks. His adult hands fit around Hashirama’s neck easily. Madara squeezed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop it,” he hissed. “You don’t say that to me. You don’t get to. I loved you and I chose you and you didn’t choose me back, Hashirama, you didn’t choose me back, you killed me, you killed me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no reply this time, mostly because Madara’s hands choked the words and the breath out of Hashirama. His body was too small for the conversation and for Madara’s anger; soon enough, it hung limp and lifeless in Madara’s hand, no more smart words, no more breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Madara wouldn’t be alone with the handful of dead Senju child for too long. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama watched from behind his back, just the spot that Madara hated most.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh boy. Did that make you feel better? Can we be honest now, or do you need to kill me to make it feel even?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Madara stared at the boy in his hands. The flushed skin, the bloated face, the dead, open eyes…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a cry, he threw himself away from the body. Crawled backwards, staring and staring, at what he’d done. This was what his hands did: destroy. Hashirama had been the only one who could withstand him but not this one, the one who was a child. Young. Small. Breakable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Madara did something he hadn’t done since he was a child himself. He covered his face with his hands and knelt, as if the darkness would banish the world. There was no bird song anymore. No sound of the river. Just his own harsh breathing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That Hashirama was still there, talking, didn’t matter. He had done the unthinkable. He was weak like this. Weak. It echoed in his heart. Too weak to protect his brother, too weak to protect his clan. Too weak to resist the hatred in himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His head bowed lower. His eyes felt wet. He would never erase the feeling of his neck in his hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The boy said nothing, watching Madara for a long moment. The rushing water of the lazy river was the only sound, until the boy moved and the stones clicked quietly beneath his sandals.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama squatted down beside Madara, laid a hand on the back of his head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s alright.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You gave in, in the end. I can’t blame you, Madara. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed of me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t hate you,” he whispered. But was that even true?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He no longer knew himself anymore. His feelings for Hashirama were infinitely complex; no single emotion could be pulled out without dragging out a thousand other feelings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama’s words drove needles into him. Madara flinched away from his touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How can you forgive me?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You always ask me that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hashirama continued petting Madara’s hair. It felt coarse as ever, but it had never put him off and it didn’t now. He was still the same, no matter how many years passed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And the answer is always the same, you know.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Because Hashirama knew him better than he knew himself. Because Hashirama loved him more than he could ever fathom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I believe in you. Maybe it will take you longer still to understand me this time, but it’s okay. I can wait.”</span>
</p>
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